Friday night ... and Savant's taking a vacation of sorts. Only two reviews tonight, and probably just that many before next Wednesday's newsletter. It's my first acknowledged break in about three years - so why do I feel guilty?

Fox's studio classics presentation of the Ingrid Bergman vehicle Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a beautiful copy of a handsome romantic adventure. An English maid breaks all the rules to become an untrained missionary in China, and discovers a whole new life for herself. It's a good, overachieving 'woman's film' from the late 50s.

MGM's Rhapsody in August is Akira Kurosawa's postscript to the atomic bombing of Japan, 45 years after the fact, when the ranks of first-person witnesses and survivors is just beginning to thin out. The approach is interesting - four children study their grandmother on her farm near Nagasaki, and then their own parents' attitudes toward the memory of bombing and their own American relatives. Very unusual. With Richard Gere in an odd role.

So, I think I'll be back on Tuesday with a couple more reviews ... consider this the slow week at DVD Savant, and perhaps dig into the Article Archive for something different to read ... ? Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Three rather big films today: one Science Fiction bomb, a gigantic dramatic masterpiece from Poland, and a great Science Fiction thriller from the Watergate years that looks better than ever. Or is it just because the general quality of films has gone downhill ...?

Home Vision Entertainment comes out on top with Mike Nichols' absorbing, entertaining The Day of the Dolphin, a superior pulp thriller with some deep ideas nicely folded into Buck Henry's clever screenplay. Tough biologist George C. Scott can teach dolphins to talk, but can't protect them from ruthless humans.

Facets Video's reissue of Kieslowski's The Decalogue is a marginal improvement on the 2000 disc set, with some useful extras and what I think is a slightly-better encoding of the same good transfer.

Fox's Solaris proves that trains wrecks can happen in space. Savvy director Steven Soderberg's decision to stress the intimate romantic aspects of the Stanislaw Lem story, and ditch most of the rest, gives us a space movie about a downer relationship that's irritating and unsatisfying. At least, that's the best sense Savant can make of it.

Next up: another new picture (two in one week?), and interesting oldies from MGM, Fox, and Columbia, with a sprinkle of Criterion. Thanks for all the friendly letters. Glenn

It's a blistering weekend in LA, but this time the A/C is working, so things are a little more liveable at high noon. Some interesting oldies today, and among them a 50-year-old pirate picture similar to but much better than a certain new release ...

Warners' The Crimson Pirate is Burt Lancaster's gift to kid's adventure, a nonsensical pirate saga dedicated to fun. You'll feel like leaping off rooftops and swinging on ropes after this one. With Torin Thatcher, Eva Bartok and Burt's old circus partner, the hilarious Nick Cravat.

Columbia TriStar's Loving examines one disillusioned artist in the process of throwing away his marriage and career, on account of - not much at all. With a nice observational style, director Irvin Kershner wowed the critics with shows like this before his Star Wars days.

Warners' Scaramouche has some near-perfect fencing swordfights, gorgeous leading ladies, and an old Rafael Sabatini story line so good, it can't be messed up. Stewart Granger swashes, and Eleanor Parker and Janet Leigh do some very attractive heavy breathing. With Mel Ferrer.

HVe's Vengo is a bizarre Iberian hybrid that attempts to fuse raw Flamenco performances with a naturalistic gypsy-gangster story. The story is slow and unrewarding, but the music will make Flamenco fans flip. With a half-hour short subject featuring more of the same foot-tapping and wailing vocals.

Not much to say for myself today ... back into editing again, which is a good feeling. The late-summer discs are starting to come in, and there are so many good older library titles, I'm hardly aware of 'new' product. Back in a couple days, Glenn Erickson

It's sweltering in Hollywood, which is of course when Savant chooses to do some serious house-rearranging and minor construction. Three reviews this morning ...

Mk2/Warner continues its Chaplin line with Limelight, a great film that will be a stretch for non-confirmed Chaplin fans. The sentiment is pretty thick, with an icing of self-worship that tries the patience. But it's still an effective comedy-drama, and perhaps his best piece of conventional direction. With the collection's usual set of excellent extras.

Columbia TriStar's Die! Die! My Darling! is meaty Grand Guignol, with Hammer films steering toward the trend for aging stars in grotesque horror roles. Clueless Stephanie Powers doesn't cut and run at the first signs that her hostess Tallulah Bankhead is a maniacal monster, and winds up with a pair of scissors stabbed into her chest. With an early Donald Sutherland appearance, just before he made a splash in The Dirty Dozen.

Image's 365 Nights in Hollywood is a clunky Alice Faye vehicle with an amusing tinseltown setting. She tries to channel Jean Harlow, but her distinctive personality shines through. A rare film in a rather battered surviving print.

Savant apologizes for not having Billy Wilder reviews up - as Mick said, ya can't get everything that you want, at least not when you want it. They'll drift in soon, though ... I'm eager to talk about this batch of sometimes maligned, great movies. Glenn Erickson

It's a hot Friday night, but I've got four very different pictures to review:

Criterion's The Honeymoon Killers is the class act today, a superior film about how true love falters under the pressure of serial murders. Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco are excellent in this fascinating story of two real criminals who preyed on defenseless widows and spinsters.

Image Entertainment's What's Up, Tiger Lily? is Woody Allen's giddily immature comedy redubbing of a Japanese spy film. Cool spy dudes talk with Brooklyn accents, and people are murdering each other to possess an egg salad recipie, 'so good, you could plotz.'

Paramount has two titles in the stack this week. John Milius' Flight of the Intruder could have been a winner, had it not been stuck with a cliché-ridden script that puts personal feelings above tactics, and has a sentimental guy foolish enough to talk about his family in a war movie. With Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe and Brad Johnson.

Roman Polanski's The Tenant is just about the only picture he's made that doesn't make it for Savant. The pieces are all there, but they keep adding up to a trite imitation of his earlier films.

Still no Billy Wilder pictures, so those might be off the review list this time around (well, not entirely). But there's no disc shortage & the reviews will keep coming .... Have a nice weekend, Glenn

Greetings: It's a holiday here; we're off to a museum to see an exhibit on Macchu Picchu. Three reviews today:

Mk2/Warner's The Great Dictator is the next handsome entry in the Charlie Chaplin series, but there's new info comparing it to the old Image series ... think PAL to NTSC time compression.

Image's Under Capricorn is a happy surprise: an infrequently-seen Hitchcock picture with a very good transfer. Ingrid Bergman faints and Joseph Cotten broods in 19th-century Australia.

And Home Vision Entertainment's Dangerous Moves is a topnotch disc of a rewarding thriller centered on a chess match between two Soviets - an official entry and his star pupil, a defector who left his wife behind in Russia. When the KGB starts playing tricks to affect the outcome of the game, the tension rises - without guns or special effects. With Michel Piccoli, Liv Ullmann and Leslie Caron.

That's it for now ... I've got some titles to catch up on, with a couple of fun swashbucklers and horror titles coming up. Still no sign of the Wilders, but we'll see. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

It's a fairly glorious 4th of July here in Hollywood, with the temperature easily topping 100 degrees. Time to move the barbecue into the shade.

Charlie Chaplin bounced back in force this week with a passel of fancy two-disc releases from MK2. The Gold Rush is a deluxe presentation of his biggest silent hit and personal favorite - presented in Charlie's preferred 1942 recut, and the 1925 original (the watchable version).

1936's Modern Times finds the Little Tramp trying to dodge riots, strikes, brutal cops, and mechanized industry run amuck. Will he and fellow vagrant Paulette Goddard survive?

MGM gives us a clean disc of the 1960 Lopert/UA hit Never on Sunday, a movie valentine from exiled director Jules Dassin to his wife, actress Melina Mercouri. The Oscar winning music is infectious in this dubious fairy tale about prostitution.

And Peter Sellers brings up the tail end of comedy in Columbia's The Mouse that Roared, a fractured satire about American foreign policy that's become cruelly dated. With Jean Seberg and Leo McKern.

Anyone care to give Savant some advice? There are more than one DVD out there of the 1937 public domain movie A STAR IS BORN ... can anyone steer me to the best-looking and sounding version .. if there is one? Enjoy the 3 day weekend - Glenn Erickson

This was supposed to be a catching-up week, but instead brings us some unique titles to review:

BBC/Warner's The Singing Detective is a fascinating 4 hour miniseries that combines medical misery, detective thrills, traumatic biography, and musical numbers in a complex tale of self-analysis. With Michael Gambon, Janet Suzman and Joanne Whalley.

Fox continues its Classic Collection with Anatole Litvak's Anastasia, a handsome production famous for being Ingrid Bergman's comeback picture. With Yul Brynner and Helen Hayes.

Lee Broughton of the UK checks in with two Region 2 PAl reviews, Legacy of Dracula and

Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis Both Japanese productions, one's a horror tale and the other a mystical/political epic.

Fox Lorber's David and Lisa is a key early independent, a sensitive story about two disturbed teens with complimentary afflictions. Keir Dullea and Janet Margolin star in this breakthrough film for Frank and Eleanor Perry.

I've been getting lots of mail about the cancelled Charlie Chan series that was going to be on cable TV. It's a shame that this kind of pressure can stomp out film history. I always thought the Chan films were vaguely amusing, but certainly less offensive than many mainstream Bob Hope films or other shows with negative Black stereotypes. Chan's jokes were funny, and they were rare films with positive Chinese characters. As for the charge that they shouldn't be shown because Anglos are playing Asians, suppressing that tradition whitewashes history. I don't see anyone banning BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY's, and that has some really offensive ethnic humor. How will ethnic activists convince anyone that progress has been made, if they successfully erase history?

Am still waiting for the Billy Wilder films, but a couple of hot titles just arrived - thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson